


A Tortured Mind

by scribb1es



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Clarke Griffin Deserves Better, F/F, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Psychological Torture, bellamy isnt all that likeable, clarke in mcap, clarke suffering as usual, someone give clarke a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25982680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribb1es/pseuds/scribb1es
Summary: Based off promos for 7x12. After Bellamy betrays her, Clarke is taken to M-CAP and tortured for her memories, but she's Clarke Griffin, so of course she doesn't make it easy for them.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & Lexa, Octavia Blake & Clarke Griffin
Comments: 9
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First piece of work I have ever written for The 100, so I hope you enjoy it! Would be so great if you could leave kudos and even a comment or two! Another chapter is currently in the works, so hopefully I will finish that and post it tomorrow. I don't see this being longer than two or three chapters, though.

If she ignored the pulsing pain through her head that made her brain feel like jelly and as if her skull is caving in, Clarke would argue that M-CAP was quite pleasurable to begin with. Even when the settings were low, it hurt like hell, but Clarke had had plenty of experience with all-consuming pain and people messing with her memories that it almost feels easy to resist. 

“You’re in an endless desert with a vast purple sky. A hand reaches for your own. Whose is it?”  
She’s starting to get sick of the line, though. Have some originality. 

She shows them memories that she knows they don’t care about, but memories that mean so much to her. She should hate the idea of someone taking her precious memories away from her, but she can’t help but get lost in her childhood.  
She shows them her Dad. Her Dad who she misses so much. It hurts that this is the only way she can ever see him now. She saw him in her mind-space, and now she sees him as strangers forcefully sift through her memories. If her head wasn’t pounding from whatever they were pulsing through her skull, she would almost smile at being able to see him again.  
She relives the stories he read to her as he took her to bed. She relives their games of hide and seek, their games of chess. She relives the football matches they watched as a family, joined by Wells and his father. She relives all the precious moments she had with him that she will never get to have again. 

Then she relives his execution. 

Her body jolts as they manage to get that out of her. She lost focus for a second, and then she had to relive one of the most painful days in her life. In some pathetic attempt to shut it out, she slams her eyes shut. She soon realises that it does nothing to stop one of the worst days of her life replaying inside her mind like she’s watching it on a TV screen.

She doesn’t want to think about her Dad anymore. 

She shows them her memories from the first few days on the ground instead. She shows them the day at the river. She shows them the glowing forest and the two headed deer. They were so foolish then to think that on the ground they were safe. If only they hadn’t been so childish, maybe they would’ve been more prepared for what was ahead. 

She doesn’t show them Jasper being hit with a spear. 

But they turn the machine up a notch, and she finds herself lost in the memory of Atom. She sees herself pierce the knife into the side of his neck as he pleads for someone to _just kill him_. She sees his face burnt from the acid fog, and his glossed eyes that could no longer see. She sees the first time she killed someone and lost a piece of her soul.

She sees the memory of the day they found Wells’ body. 

She fights again. These aren’t memories she wants to relive. She doesn’t want to relive the day she lost the last of her innocence - the day that she lost her best friend right after she got him back again. 

But it’s getting harder and now she sees Murphy being tied up and hung from a tree. She’s sees Bellamy screaming at her that it’s _her fault_ and she can’t stop the small scream that escapes her mouth.  
She needs to fight harder because she knows what comes next, and she’s not prepared to see the young girl that threw her body off a cliff. Charlotte’s death was her fault. She should’ve kept her mouth shut about Murphy’s knife, confronted him privately and tried to figure out the truth.  
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Even if she doesn’t show all the painful memories, they still make their way to the back of her mind and that hurts almost as much. 

She shows them the time where her and Finn sat on a hill, watching the night sky. Wishing upon a shooting star that they would later find out was Raven’s pod.  
She shows them how much of a genius Raven is, even though she knows they already know from Octavia. She shows them her idea about the flares and how she gets the radio to work again. But she doesn’t show the frantic surgery she performed on Finn during a storm, or how they tied Lincoln up and tortured him for the antidote. 

They turn the machine up a notch again. 

This time she’s not sure she can fight it. 

She screams at the pain, thrashes her whole body in some pathetic attempt to break the restraints holding her down even though she knows it’s futile. She feels the sharp spikes that begin to pierce the delicate skin of her temples as she tosses her head, feels the thick blood that oozes and falls down either side of her head - coating her hairline with blood as black as the darkness that has taken over her soul. It’s then that she realises that the physical pain stops them from being able to see her memories. So she thrashes more. Harder. More desperate. Because she just wants them _out of her head_.

They realise what she’s trying to do and they turn the machine up again, hoping that increasing the intensity will paralyse her body and stop her from being able to cause herself harm and override the machine. 

It works. 

She sees that day that Bellamy saves her life - the first time. She feels the pain of Dax hitting her on the head with his gun, and then again in her stomach. She sees the day on the bridge with Anya. At first she doesn’t understand why this memory is wrapped up in those of her trauma, but then she remembers the virus that swept through the camp, the bomb they built for the bridge and being taken hostage by the grounder with Finn. She sees herself kill the man who guarded her door and getting caught in their trap, tied up again until Lincoln saves her. 

She sees them burn the 300 grounders who attack their ship. 

“This is useless,” she hears Cadogan announce, clearly annoyed at the lack of information he’s getting, “we still know nothing about the The Key.”

Then she hears Bellamy cut in. He knows what’s next.

“She’ll break soon. Clarke – show us Mount Weather.”

——

The next thing Clarke knows, she’s waking up in another room, and her head is absolutely killing her. She can feel someone wiping a wet cloth along her hairline, and she realises they must be wiping away the blood. She has no idea who is with her, she can’t remember anything past the moment when Bellamy gave her secret away other than a white room and blinding pain in her head, but she’s desperate to know who’s looking after her. Her eyelids feel heavy and it takes all her strength just to open them. 

She sees Octavia’s face hovering above her own, concerned etched across her features. Her mouth is mouthing. 

Clarke realises Octavia is trying to talk to her, but the pounding in her head and the ringing in her ears makes it sound like the girl is talking underwater and she can’t make out a word she is saying. When she tries to force herself to focus on the movement of her lips, the pain in her head intensifies, and she barely has a moment to register the bile forcing its way up her throat before she’s leaning over the side of the bed she’s laid on, throwing up all over the floor. She barely misses Octavia’s feet. 

“I know, I know. It hurts like hell,” Octavia’s voice begins to break through, and she finds herself giving the girl a weak nod before she twists her body back and throws her head exhausted against the pillows. 

“You should drink,” Octavia encourages, passing her a cup filled with water. Clarke starts to lift her arm to take it but is too weak to lift it more than a few inches. Even if she could’ve lifted her arm high enough, she’s shaking so violently that she’s sure she would’ve just spilt it everywhere. Instead, Octavia shuffles over a bit, sits on the edge of the bed and places an arm behind her back. The girl holds her up with one arm as she lifts the cup to the blonde girl’s lips with the other. After a few greedy sips, Clarke nods to let Octavia know she was finished. 

She groans at the pain it causes her head. 

They sit in silence for a little while, neither girl knowing what to say to the other. It’s Clarke that breaks the silence. 

“How long was I there?” She asks, almost afraid of the answer. In that room it felt like time stopped. It felt she was there for days, but also only minutes. 

“Two days,” Octavia answered, “I could hear you screaming from here. I’m pretty sure everyone else could hear you, too.”

Small snippets of what happened after Bellamy’s betrayal make their way into her memory. 

Everyone had been split into pairs after Bellamy’s betrayal - Hope was put with Jordan, and Niylah was put with Miller. Echo was put with Raven, and Octavia was put with Clarke. The four rooms were either side of the same corridor - Clarke and Octavia were opposite Echo and Raven, and next to Jordan and Hope. 

“How- how did I get here? I don’t remember,” Clarke confessed. 

“You passed out,” Octavia explained, “Levitt said your heart rate went erratic and your blood pressure dropped ridiculously low. You almost had a seizure, but they stopped the machine just in time.”

Clarke nodded. 

“It was when they were sorting through your memories of Mount Weather,” she pushed further, a harsh tone making its way into her voice, “Bellamy’s suggestion.”

It was then that it all came flooding back to her.  


——

They made her relive the day she woke up scared and alone in that white room. If it wasn’t so awfully tragic, it would almost be a laughable irony.  
Monty’s face pops up in the window opposite hers, and Clarke remembers the pain of seeing his face again. 

He wanted them to do better and look where they were now. 

Then the room is empty and she relives the utterly overwhelming panic she had felt when she realised her friend was gone. She goes after Maya, and then she’s tied up in the infirmary. Dante Wallace speaks warmly to her, trying to reassure her she was safe. But she can’t believe him, and now she knows she was right not to. Dante may not have been the real enemy in Mount Weather, but he’s still part of the reason that Clarke become Wanheda and commanded death.

They skip over all other memories of Mount Weather, stopping briefly at the moment she found the locked-up grounders harvested for their blood and escapes with Anya. She’s glad that they skip over Lexa for now, but that relief is replaced with horror when she sees the moment that she’s speaking to Cage Wallace over a radio as they drill into her friends’ bones. 

She shoots Dante Wallace and they put her Mum on the table. 

Suddenly, her hand is on the lever and Clarke knows what happens next, but she does everything in her power to stop them from making her relive it. 

She fights harder again. She’s screaming and crying and begging them to stop. Begging Bellamy to stop. He knows how much this haunts her. He was there at the gates of Camp Jaha with her before she walked away into the wilderness because she couldn’t stomach seeing her people’s faces everyday after what she did. She bore it so they didn’t have to.

But instead of stopping them, she hears him tell them to turn it up and they comply. 

She tries so hard to keep fighting, but she feels her resolve slipping. It hurts so much. Her heart feels like it’s going to jump right out of her chest and she’s pretty sure her brain has completely melted by now. 

She pulls the lever and the last thing she sees before her world turns black is Maya’s burned and dead body in Jasper’s arms. 

——

They leave her alone for a few days after that. 

Levitt comes to see them and he tells them that’s because he told Cadogan she was far too weak to be subjected to M-CAP so soon. He told them it would probably kill her, and her memories about the Flame are too important to Cadogan for him to risk that.  
Octavia looks after her because Levitt is right - she can barely move without black spots obscuring her vision. For the first 24 hours Clarke can barely keep her eyes open for more than ten minutes at a time, her body so drained from the whole ordeal. If she moves too much, the world rocks and bile rises up her throat. Her stomach is empty, though, so she just dry heaves, the physical exertion zapping up what little energy she has left.

Bellamy visits them, too. 

Clarke’s asleep when he first arrives. It was only a few hours after she had first woken up, and she was _so_ exhausted. She woke up once Octavia started screaming at him, lobbing Clarke’s empty cup at his chest. 

“I’m here to check on the subject,” he said, his tone completely emotionless. It concerned her. When had he become this person? Just a week or so ago he was breathing air back into her lungs and clinging onto her as if is life depended on it. Just a week or so ago he brought her back to life. 

“She’s not a subject, Bellamy,” Octavia seethes, “She’s your best friend and you almost killed her.”

“I did what I had to do for all mankind,” he argues, “she would’ve been okay if she hadn’t resisted. I didn’t want to harm her, but she gave me no choice. She did this to herself.”

“Not too long ago she had a different lunatic strolling her mind for memories that weren’t hers,” his sister reminded him, “and even Josephine didn’t torture her like you did.”

Clarke tried to sit up then but gasped in pain. The Blake siblings stopped their arguing to look over, one pair of eyes filled with concern, whilst the other was just void of any emotion. 

“I told you to rest,” Octavia scolded, “are you okay? Do you need anything?”

The blonde swallowed heavily, “I need him to leave.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter! I'm not all that happy with the ending, but it was where my mind took me in the end. I wanted to try and fit Praimfaya in there, but it just didn't seem to work in a way that I thought felt right. And I redeemed Bellamy's character earlier than I planned. But I still like it, even if it wasn't what I thought it would be.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy! 
> 
> This is most likely the end, but maybe I'll update it if I come up with any ideas. Who knows, the next epsiode could inspire me...

Five days pass before Bellamy saunters back into their room and takes Clarke away again. Levitt tried to keep them away as long as he could, told them she needed more time to recuperate, but Cadogan was growing impatient and kept saying they were running out of time.

This time when they come to her room to escort her she fights back. She doesn’t want to go back to that white room and be strapped down to a chair. She doesn’t want to relive every awful thing she’s ever lived through. Life hadn’t been the kindest thing to her since she had landed on Earth what felt like a lifetime ago – in a way it was.  
But she fights in vain because they still manage to restrain her and drag her to M-CAP. She kicks and screams the entire way down the corridor, and she knows her friends can hear from their rooms, but she can’t find it in her to care.

Clarke Griffin never breaks? Yeah, right. Think again. There’s nothing more terrifying than her own mind.

“Bellamy, _please_ ,” she begs, tears threatening to spill from the bottom of her eyes, “please don’t let them do this again. I can’t do this. Please, Bellamy!”

He says nothing.

They make it to that godforsaken white room and she’s once again strapped down in the chair. Complete fear consumes her body and she feels her body shaking uncontrollably even before they switch on the machine, but no one seems to care as they turn on it on and she sees the giant needle moving closer to her body.  
“Clarke, who held The Key before you?” She hears Bellamy say and she contorts her face in confusion before she pales, realising what they want to know.

They want to know about Lexa.

“You know the answer to that question, Bellamy,” she spits, unable to believe that he has betrayed her _again_. She’s sure he told Cadogan all about Lexa and who she was and that was why they wanted to see all her memories involving the Commander. If he’s told them about Lexa, has he told them about Madi? Has be broken his promise to keep her daughter safe a second time? Just like in that room 125 years ago, she’s restrained, and he has her daughter’s life in his hands – all she can do is scream and beg and hope he sees sense.  
“Start the machine,” Bill orders and it’s only a few moments before she feels that familiar pain making its way through her body.

“You enter a worn tent and you see someone sat on a large throne before you. Who is it?” Bellamy asks her. 

Well at least they were being original this time.

She can’t stop the image of Lexa sat boldly in her throne as she plays with her knife, face covered in war paint and a gold pendant between her green eyes. It’s a memory she wishes she could focus on forever, even if it hurts to see the woman again when she knows of her tragic fate. But it’s too risky to focus on Lexa when she knows what they want to know.

Of course, she fights, and they turn it up.

The whole experience is much like it was last time, only she’s weaker and it takes less force to get into her head. She still makes herself bleed, though. She still screams and cries and begs.  
They see her guide Lexa to the drop ship where Lincoln is tied up after having been turned into a Reaper. They see Lexa agree to a truce, at the cost of Finn’s life, and before she can stop it, they’re replaying the moment she walked over to him tied up to a post and stabbed a knife through his chest. Raven’s cries in the background are just as haunting as she remembers.

She sees Bellamy shift a little at that memory in the corner of her eye, realising it struck a nerve (he’d been there with Raven, he’d held her as she’d cried) and then she has an idea. She fights the memories of Lexa by showing them memories between her and Bellamy. If she can break this hold his new-found faith has over him, then maybe she can get him back on their side.  
So once they see her desperately scrubbing Finns blood from her hands, she counteracts it with the day that they sat in her room in Arkadia as the tried to write down a hundred names on a list. She looks over to his sleeping form on the couch, and then she’s writing down his name in the penultimate spot. Then she’s crying as he takes the pen from her and writes down her name after his, telling her that if _his_ name is on there, then _hers is too_.

She sees him shift again. Maybe this can work.

The next memory is the day they were in TonDC, burning Finn’s body along with the 18 he massacred. The 18 he massacred for _her_. She speaks in Trig to the burning pyre, and she hears Cadogan talk about how that was his daughter’s language. She knows that means he will keep pushing.  
So then she thinks about the time she fell into the pit, almost impaled with spikes. Bellamy is clutching her wrist – he’s the only thing keeping her from falling and meeting her death. She doesn’t have time to see how he reacts to that memory before they’re prodding further for more memories of Lexa.

Lexa tells her love is weakness. In this moment, she thinks maybe she was right after all. Cadogan and his Disciples definitely think so.

They keep trying. They see Gustus try and break the truce, and her drinking from the flask to prove he was lying, and he replaces Raven on the post. Quint follows her in the forest, and Major Byrne tells her to save herself as she stands there with her arm ripped off. Then her and Lexa are running from Pauna, and again Lexa tells her she is weak. The whole time she tries to fight against them, trying to conjure a memory that might snap Bellamy out of this daze, but an image barely flickers before they’re back on task.

Her head hurts so much.

Clarke warns Lexa about the missile that’s about to hit TonDC. She begs her to tell everyone what is happening, but Lexa doesn’t let her because if they do, they’ll know Bellamy is in the mountain. The bomb hits and she sees the face her mother gave her all those years ago and it still hurts just as much. Victory stands on the back of sacrifice – that’s what Lexa tells her. In the distance, she hears Cadogan mumble about how smart Lexa is and Clarke wants to scream at him. He doesn’t get to say that about her. This is the Lexa purely lead by the Flame, not the Lexa that Clarke really knows.

Finally, she manages to break the hold they have on her, screaming as she forces them to see the moment Bellamy tried to leave the bunker to save his sister. She’s pointing the gun at him, tells her that she will have to make it a kill shot, but she can’t do that. Her friends are her weakness. Bellamy is her weakness, and she lowers the gun.

“The bunker,” Cadogan speaks in awe, “you found the bunker?”

Clarke kicks herself for her lapse of judgement choosing that memory, forgetting its link to the Second Dawn. Of course Cadogan would know where it was. 

“Turn it up,” he orders. This time she hears Bellamy speak up.

“My Shepard,” he hesitates, “she’s still weak. I don’t know if-”

“If this is getting too hard for you, Bellamy, you are more than welcome to leave,” Bill offers, “Levitt can take over. We are getting close. I can feel it.”

“No Sir,” he counters, and Clarke swears she can hear him swallow from the chair before he speaks again, “I can do this. For all mankind.”

But she knows Bellamy, and she hears the crack in his voice. She’s getting to him. She’s breaking the surface. She just needs a little more time and she knows she can get through to him.

When the machine is turned up a notch, the memory in the bunker fades, replaced with the scene of Lexa’s tent. She’s telling her Octavia isn’t a threat, telling her that she knows Lexa cares, even though she let her people burn. Lexa tells her _not everyone, not you_. Then suddenly their lips are crashing together, Clarke telling her that _maybe life should be about more than just surviving_. They plan war strategies. Lexa leaves her at the mountain.  
Her mind almost slips back to the moment she pulls the lever, but she sees Bellamy frantically trying to skip past that all and she’s thankful. If she saw it again, she thinks it would probably kill her.

Bellamy is trying to save her from Roan next. She’s begging Roan not to kill him, telling him she’ll stop fighting. Again, she sees Bellamy shift uncomfortably because he knows that after that moment, Roan stabbed him in the leg and dragged her away.  
More memories keep flying past. Memories of Polis – Clarke spitting in Lexa’s face, holding a knife to her throat. Clarke telling her she would never bow to her, then getting on one knee at the summit.

Memory Bellamy breaks into the room trying to save her. Real Bellamy looks away. 

Lexa swears fealty to her and then Nia challenges the Commander to a death match. Lexa kills the Ice Queen and Roan is announced King. Gently, Clarke bandages Lexa’s hand before she goes to bed. Then they’re making their way back to Arkadia with the Queen’s body, stumbling across the massacred army on the way.

Bellamy swallows heavily. She knows it’s one of his biggest regrets.

“Please, Bellamy,” she begs again, knowing he’s starting to break, but she only speaks loud enough for him to hear, “don’t let someone else make you become someone you’re not.”

He closes his eyes and sighs. She knows she’s got him now.

“He’s watching,” he whispers, “I don’t know what to do.”

“For now, pretend you’re still with him,” she replies, “we can work out the rest later. Together.”

“Together,” he agrees.

They continue to sift through her memories of Lexa – even the ones that give them nothing to work from. Lexa held The Key, after all, so Cadogan has a strange obsession. They see her drawing, Lexa trying to get her to stay in Polis with her. They see her death and continue to replay the moment she had the Flame removed. Clarke can’t stop the tear that falls down her face, and the tears that continue to follow them after they see the City of Light.

Even though she doesn’t want to, she continues to give them the memories - because she has Bellamy back now. 

And that’s all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @maiasgriffin


End file.
